“He has been tied to a post,” he said in answer to my silent question.
I wasn’t sure if that would be more comfortable or not.
“Ava?” I called, once again straining against the wood to look for her but coming up short.
My wooden prison must have been in front of the others just a bit, because if they had been lined up evenly, I would have at least been able to catch a glimpse of them.
A voice came from my other side. “I’m okay.”
“You will all be okay,” Matthew said, “as long as you repent of your wicked ways and turn to the Lord.”
I had to force my eyes not to roll.
“Use this time,” he continued, “to reflect on your purpose in this world.”
I bit down on my lip to keep from hurling a million insults his way. There was no point in pissing off a man who was already considering killing me. Especially one who was so clearly insane.
My gaze was focused on the ground when Matthew turned away. I couldn’t see much of my surroundings, but the scuff of multiple feet told me others had followed. Still, I strained, trying to get a good look at my surroundings and see if any of the men who’d helped get us in these torture devices were still around.
I couldn’t see much, but it turned out it didn’t matter, because after a few minutes a man with scuffed black boots stopped in front of me. He grasped my chin, forcing my head up painfully before I even had a chance to try to lift my gaze, and I came face to face with the asshole from the bridge.
The Negan wannabe was smiling, revealing brown teeth that were in desperate need of a brushing. “Told you.”
“And I told you to keep your filthy fucking hands off me.” I tried, and failed, to jerk my chin from his grasp.
He released me, chuckling. “A night in the stocks will help get you in line. It always does.”
I’d been right. Despite what Matthew claimed, most people weren’t jumping up and down to arrive here and discover they were about to be married off to a stranger. Not a big surprise, really. Even in this uncertain world, it was a stretch to think people would be willing to go along with an arranged marriage at the hands of a madman in exchange for safety.
No one spoke to us after the asshole who’d dragged me down here left, and we didn’t talk. Since I couldn’t see the others, I wasn’t sure what they were thinking, but I was considering my options. There weren’t many. I didn’t know what Matthew’s form of judgment would be, but I doubted he’d simply toss us outside the walls and tell us to get lost. He’d called us heretics, and anyone who used that word couldn’t be relied on to be rational, so I was willing to bet he had a slightly more medieval form of death planned for us. Hanging, or maybe we’d be burned at the stake. Maybe he’d tie rocks to our legs and throw us in the river. At this point, I wouldn’t put anything past him.
As much as it made my stomach roll to think about it, we were going to have to pretend to go along with this insanity long enough to find a way out of here. Only I couldn’t let Ava go through with this. Gideon was quiet and hard to read. What if he thought consummating their marriage was his duty? The thought made me shudder.
I couldn’t let that happen, which meant making a deal with Matthew. Except, as much as I wanted to protect the girl, I couldn’t allow myself to be married off to a stranger in exchange for her safety. What then?
Logan.
He was the obvious answer, and the only thing that might keep us safe. We could agree to get married—we’d be on the same page about the whole thing being a sham—but in exchange Matthew would have to agree to wait a while to marry Ava and Gideon. At least until she turned sixteen. He was a supposed man of God, so odds were he had some form of conscience. Right?
The stadium began to settle down for the night, one fire after the other being put out until darkness had descended upon us. There was a slight chill in the air that seemed at odds with the humidity, telling me that if I looked up, I’d find the sky once again filled with clouds. Of course, I couldn’t look up, not with my head clamped in this damn torture device.
“Brady?” I whispered once I was sure no was around to hear our conversation. “Are you awake?”
“I couldn’t possibly sleep in this position,” he said, keeping his voice at a level that barely allowed me to hear it.
“What are we going to do?” Ava asked from my other side.
I couldn’t see either of them, but I heard it when Brady blew out a long breath. He said nothing, telling me he didn’t have a clue.
“I’ve given it a lot of thought,” I began, knowing I was going to be met with at least a little opposition. “At this point, I think going along with Matthew is our only option.”
“You can’t be serious,” Ava said while Brady growled, “Out of the question.”
Without thinking, I tried to twist my head in his direction and immediately regretted it when a tendon or muscle pulled tight. Even after I turned my head so I was once again staring at the ground, the throbbing pain in my neck didn’t lessen. Great.
“Believe me, it isn’t anything I want to do, but what other choice do we have?” I paused long enough to confirm he had no ideas of his own before saying, “It’s only to buy us time, and only on two conditions.”
“Which are?” Brady asked, his voice level but strained.
“One, Logan and I get married,” I replied, “and two, Ava waits until she turns sixteen.”
“What will that accomplish?” the girl hissed.
“Logan and I will be on the same page, so we won’t have to worry about someone getting the wrong idea, and this way we’ll be able to buy ourselves some time so we can plan our escape.”
Even saying the words out loud made me shudder, but I pushed the dread down. It wasn’t like Logan and I would be married for real. I knew that, but it still made me feel like I was betraying Kellan.
“I think you’re ignoring a significant part of Matthew’s ideology,” Brady said. “He wants babies. Who’s to say he won’t have you watched to make sure you consummate the marriage?”
My stomach rolled even more. Unfortunately, at this point, I didn’t know if we had any other options available to us.
“It’s a risk we’ll have to take,” I managed to force out. “Especially considering the other option. What do you think a religious madman does to heretics?”
Brady inhaled slowly like he was thinking it through, and I waited in silence, knowing he’d come to the same conclusion I had. We were pretty much screwed unless we found a way to buy ourselves some time so we could get away, and this was really the only option.
“What if he doesn’t agree to let me wait?” Ava whispered.
The breath her father had just sucked in was released in a violent burst. “You slit the throat of anyone who touches you.”
The dark words were wrapped in an even darker tone that seemed at odds with the man I’d just met, while at the same time made total sense. Ava didn’t share his blood, but she was still his daughter. I’d had two fathers in my life, my biological father who died before the zombies came back and Jasper, and I knew they both would have reacted the same way in this situation.
“That’s what you do,” I agreed. “What about you, Brady? Did Matthew mention anything about marriage to you?”
The other man snorted. “Not surprisingly, his mission to repopulate the Earth doesn’t seem to extend to dwarves. I guess he doesn’t quite like the idea of passing on my tainted genes.”
Ava made a sound I couldn’t decipher but said nothing.
“We should count the fact that he’s a prick as a blessing,” I said because, in reality, it was. The fact that he wasn’t going to try to marry Brady off was one less thing we had to worry about. “Hopefully, Matthew will agree to only Logan and myself marrying.”
The faces of the other people who’d been washed ashore after the boat sank floated through my mind, but I pushed them aside. Brady probably knew some of them, but I didn’t, and I had to focus on getting us
out of this in one piece and with as little internal damage as possible.
Despite the uncomfortable position I was in, I found I couldn’t keep my eyes open in the face of my exhaustion. Too bad the stocks didn’t exactly make it possible for me to do more than doze off. My eyes would close, my head bob, and no matter how much I tried to fight it, exhaustion would eventually win and my body would give in. But it never lasted. I would wake after only a short nap, gasping for breath from the pressure of the wood against my throat. To make matters worse, I had to pee, and by the time the sun had begun to rise, even my extreme exhaustion couldn’t overshadow the pressure in my bladder.
When footsteps came up behind me and someone started fumbling with the stocks, I found it impossible to hold still. It was like I was five all over again, dancing outside the bathroom door because I’d waited too long and was now on the verge of having an accident. I totally was, which would have been humiliating, but at least it wouldn’t be my fault if it happened.
The wood was lifted away, and I righted myself, my body screaming in protest, and spun to face the person who’d freed me. It was the Negan wannabe, and even though the sight of his ugly face made me want to curl my hand into a fist and throw a punch, all I could do was shout, “I have to pee!”
He chuckled and grabbed my arm, pulling me away from the stocks, but said nothing.
I allowed him to drag me away, straining to look behind me so I could catch a glimpse of Brady and Ava. Like me, they had been freed from their positions of torture and were being dragged forward, Ava by the man who’d grabbed her on the bridge and Brady by a smaller man I’d never seen before.
The thug holding me hauled me across the stadium where he pulled me into a tunnel and back inside the dark, cold interior. Behind me, other footsteps pounded against the pavement telling me we weren’t alone, but still a sudden terror swept over me and all thoughts of my straining bladder disappeared as I remembered his vow to make me regret cutting him. I struggled, trying to get away, but the asshole’s hand only tightened on my arm.
He took me to the end of the hall and up some stairs, climbing through darkness in silence, his fingers seeming to tighten with each passing second. The tromping of feet and huff of heavy breathing bounced off the cement walls, and several flights of stairs later, we came to a door where the man finally stopped, but only long enough to knock twice. He didn’t even wait to be summoned before turning the knob and pushing the door open.
I was dragged into a carpeted room that seemed totally out of place in a stadium. A large bed sat to the right, while to my left there was nothing but glass. It looked out over the stadium, which was the only reason I understood what this place was. An owner’s box or something. It was the only explanation.
Ava and Brady were dragged into the room just as the man holding me let go of my arm.
He shoved me forward and said, “Bathroom is over there.”
I barely registered the door he nodded at before rushing toward it. The fact that it didn’t stink like most bathrooms these days or that the electricity worked didn’t register until after I’d released my bladder. That was when it hit me that the toilet worked, and when I turned the knob, water flowed from the faucet.
What the hell?
After I’d washed my hands, I took a deep breath. If I were alone, I’d worry the asshole who’d dragged me up here had something vile planned, but since Ava and Brady had been brought, too, I assumed we were in Matthew’s bedroom. It made sense, especially when I remembered the throne-like chair he’d sat in the day before while we ate.
Still, I prepared myself for a fight just in case. The Negan impersonator was bigger and stronger than I was, but I’d fight him if it came down to it. I’d lose, of that I was sure, but I was determined to get in a few good punches, if nothing else.
When I pulled the door open, he was nowhere to be seen, and in his place stood Matthew.
“Regan.” He waved to the couches set up in front of the glass wall where Brady and Ava already sat waiting. “Now that you’ve had some time to think, perhaps we can have a rational discussion.”
Rational, I thought, right.
Brady’s gaze held mine as I crossed the room, giving a slight nod to let me know we were on the same page. At his side, Ava looked like she might be sick, and I found myself wishing Matthew had decided to leave her in the stocks. She didn’t need to be sitting here waiting to find out if she was going to be raped under the guise of doing God’s will.
I took a seat on the couch at Brady’s side, and once I had, Matthew followed. He sat in an armchair about four feet from me, giving off the impression that he was trying to demonstrate his elevated rank. Whatever. I was just glad I didn’t have to sit next to the guy.
“Have you had time to think things through?” he said after we’d gotten comfortable, looking from me to Brady. “I gather from our discussion yesterday that you had a male friend on the boat, and I know that might make you hesitate, but rest assured that God is in control, and everything, even this, happens for a reason. My men have been out patrolling the banks of the river, and we’ve found nothing, and yet here you are. Alive. We must look at it as a sign from God and endeavor to do His will. Even in the face of sadness.”
“I understand,” I replied, having to fight to keep my voice even when everything inside me threatened to crumble, “and I’d like to make a deal with you.”
Matthew lifted his eyebrows. “Go on.”
“I will marry, but not a stranger. Logan.”
The older man’s lips twitched, but he managed to keep his smile in.
“But only if you agree to allow Ava to wait until she turns sixteen,” I continued. “She’s young, and being forced to marry a stranger is terrifying, but if we wait and let her get to know Gideon, she may find she likes him.”
His mouth turned down at the corners, and right away I knew he wouldn’t give in. “I’m afraid that isn’t possible. God sent me here for a reason, and I must fulfill my mission.”
“What about my mission?” Brady said before I could respond.
Matthew’s eyebrows lifted higher as he looked the smaller man over doubtfully. “Your mission?”
“Matthew chapter five, verse five. Blessed are the meek; for they shall inherit the earth.” Brady stood and waved to himself. “I ask you, have you seen anyone meeker than me?”
“You believe you’ll inherit the earth?” Matthew asked, his lips twitching like he was holding in a smile.
“Not exactly.” Brady turned to Ava. “I believe I was sent here to protect someone who will.”
Matthew’s frown deepened, but he said nothing.
“I was saved by God to make sure she stayed safe,” Brady said, once again focusing on the older man. “What other explanation can there be for why I’ve survived this long when so many bigger, stronger men have perished?”
“It does seem unlikely.” Matthew scratched at his chin, staring at Brady like he was noticing him for the first time.
“Highly unlikely,” Brady agreed. “First, I survived the virus, then I chose to stay in Colorado when I could have left with Angus James and his group.”
Matthew’s hand dropped to his lap when he sat up straighter. “You knew Angus James?”
“We both did,” Ava said.
“He and his group were staying at my home when he was bitten, when he found out he was immune. They headed to Atlanta, but I chose to stay. Ava’s mother did as well, and when she died, this girl found her way to me.” Brady turned so he was looking at Ava, who was staring up at him like he was her hero. “That was the day God revealed His purpose for my life. It was this girl. She was the reason I’d been allowed to live through so much, why I survived the boat sinking yesterday. It’s up to me to get her someplace safe. It’s my—”
“Safer than here?” Matthew waved toward the window overlooking the stadium.
Brady tore his gaze from Ava but said nothing.
He was probably trying to decide what to say
next, but it didn’t matter. His words had given me an idea, and I jumped at the chance to add to his story about a higher calling.
“Oklahoma,” I called out. “To the shelter where I live in. Ava and her mom lived in one just like it in the beginning of the apocalypse, which is why God brought me across the country to find her.”
“So you could lead us to Oklahoma,” Brady said, taking my cue.
“Exactly. The boat would have gone down even if I hadn’t been there, but because of me, Ava got to shore safely, and now I can lead you to Oklahoma so—”
“Enough,” Matthew barked, making me jump. “What you are saying is blasphemy and goes against the will of God.” He narrowed his eyes on me, and I suddenly missed that crazy smile of his. “You will marry your injured friend, Logan.” His focus turned to Ava. “You will marry Gideon. Today.”
Brady stepped in front of her, which did little to shield the girl from view considering he only came up to her chest. “And if we refuse?”
“The girl will be returned to the stocks to reconsider, and you will die,” Matthew said. “I told you, anyone who goes against the will of God is a heretic.”
“She’s a child,” I said, just as Brady barked out, “I will burn this place down before I allow you to—”
“I’ll do it.” Ava stepped around Brady, giving him a look before turning to Matthew. “I’ll marry him as long as you promise not to hurt Brady.”
The old man’s body relaxed, and the creepy smile he’d worn all day yesterday returned. “No one who cooperates with God’s plan will be injured.”
“Ava,” Brady said, grabbing her arm, “you can’t do this.”
She turned to him. “You saved me. Now it’s my turn to save you.”
Brady’s expression said he was torn, but Matthew didn’t give him time to say anything else. “There will be a group ceremony this afternoon. Everyone in the settlement is required to attend and witness the union. In the meantime, we should get you cleaned up and fed.”
19
The Oklahoma Wastelands Series Box Set | Books 1-3 Page 75
